Deep blue Badenoch faces multiple challenges as Tory leader

Kemi Badenoch might have avoided the cursed 52%-48% ratio that has riven the Conservative party before, but the nevertheless close-run nature of her 56.5% tally in the members' vote for the party's new leader shows the scale of the task before her.

- Peter Walker

It is hard to overstate the challenges Rishi Sunak's successor faces, even setting aside the muchcited fact that the last new UK leader to take a party directly from an election defeat to government was Margaret Thatcher in 1979.

To begin with, as Badenoch acknowledged in her victory speech, which came with a warning that Tories must "tell the truth" to win back the trust of the voting public, opposition is just as difficult, especially after so long in government.

There is a sense that quite a number of the 121 remaining Conservative MPs are still only just getting used to the sparse opposition benches and limited number of select committee places.